Something to Protect
by Feriku
Summary: He's trying to atone for his crimes. She's been trapped in her nightmare for years. Together, can they escape the darkness of the past?  Ships WalterxAngela. Rated for dark themes and violence.


Disclaimer: I, of course, don't own Silent Hill or these characters, as awesome as that would be.

Author's Note: This _is_ a romance fic, shipping WalterxAngela, even if it seems to be a bit slow moving. I think they make an interesting pair. The M rating is there due to dark themes like suicide and homicide, as well as violence during the nightmare and the fights. I know that if you look at the timeline, it stretches plausibility a bit to accept that Angela's been wandering around Silent Hill all this time, but since I'm also asking you to accept that Walter's just been mysteriously brought back to life...well, just sigh at the logic and enjoy the story.

Author's Second Note: I had a ridiculous time with the scene breaks, by the way, since my preferred method was with asterisks, and they all promptly disappeared when I uploaded it. I hope the method I finally settled for is good; if not, feel free to let me know.

* * *

**Something to Protect**

The streets of Silent Hill were empty and desolate that evening. Only the fog was there to greet him, and as it filtered across the streets and over his skin, Walter Sullivan could almost imagine that it was whispering to him.

_Why have you come back?_

His footsteps seemed painfully loud as he walked the empty streets.

_I did not ask for another chance at life,_ he answered silently. _Yet here I am, again. Alive. Why? I asked that myself._

It was too quiet. There should have been some noise, either of animals scurrying through the bushes, or of stranger creatures waiting to attack the unwary.

_There is nothing for you here. Your grave has long sat covered, ever since the day that you fled. You could have descended into its depths and faced the truth, but instead you turned your back on the truth, with the dying screams of the children still ringing in your ears._

He remembered that day. How could he ever forget it? A shudder ran through him at the memory. He tugged his blue coat tighter around himself, but it didn't help. The cold he was feeling was from within.

_I've faced the truth_, he told the silent town.

He didn't like it, but he had faced it, and finally, accepted it. He was who he was, and nothing he could do would change the past. Perhaps that was why he was alone in the town. Here of all places, he had expected the past to confront him, in nightmarish form. If it did, he was ready.

He wasn't quite at peace, but he had come to terms with himself. How could he ever be at peace, with what he had done? Why didn't something in this town leap out at him, attack him, force him to atone for his sins with his own blood?

_This is not your nightmare,_ the abandoned buildings seemed to tell him.

_I know._

Whose nightmare was it, then? There had to be someone else here; the town couldn't be as empty as it had first appeared to him to be. Somewhere, someone else walked through these streets—or perhaps ran through them, being chased.

_Why are you here?_

He recognized one of the buildings towering above him at last, and stopped. It was the Balkan Church. He had never been inside it, but at least now he knew where he was. He had been wandering aimlessly on what he now knew was Bachman Road.

_Could I just start life again, forgetting my past?_

If he kept going south, he should eventually reach Sandford Street. From there, he could go to the lighthouse.

He looked at the Balkan Church a final time and then continued to walk.

_You can never undo what you have done. All the good deeds in the world won't bring those people back to life!_

The lighthouse was tall enough that he might be able to see most of the town from its top. He would be able to see who else was in Silent Hill, as well as where they were and if they needed any help.

_I know. But I can try to balance the scale._

xXx

It was a long road, but he didn't care. He needed the time anyway, to think about what he was going to do. It was all well and good to say that he would help whoever else was in Silent Hill, but how exactly would that work?

There would almost certainly be monsters, so he would need a weapon.

He took a brief detour off of the road when he saw a fallen tree branch. He picked it up; it felt solid and sturdy in his hands. It was better than nothing, and if he was honest with himself, he didn't want to use a conventional weapon anytime soon.

Returning to Bachman Road, he continued to head south, alert for any sign of danger even as he thought.

Coming to the town like this hadn't been much of an idea. He just hadn't had many others—he had been tempted to go to Ashfield, but his thoughts were still too chaotic to allow that just yet—and the more he had thought about it, the better of an idea it seemed.

He had been in this abandoned, corrupted version of Silent Hill before. It was a brief, but vivid, memory, of being hunted by _creatures_ until his splintering mind had pulled him back into reality, doggedly determined to complete his mission. Like the whispering wind had reminded him, he had seen his own grave. It had surprised him, because he was still alive. Even more surprising, it seemed to descend down forever.

He had left, not knowing or caring what it meant. Only recently, when the truth of his life had been forced upon him, had he begun to wonder if that had been a turning point.

Had that mysterious shadow of the town he knew been trying to offer him a chance to accept the truth, accept the _guilt_, and take a different path?

If that were the case, than surely others had been called, as well. And if so, then there were undoubtedly those who were as weak as he had been—he could admit, now, that he had been weak, in an unusual sort of way—and unable to survive the darkness. Perhaps they only needed someone to help.

With that thought in his mind, he had left for Silent Hill, walking because he wanted to avoid people, and thinking about who he was.

He could see the lighthouse in the distance, so he quickened his pace slightly.

The thought of the monsters that could be waiting didn't bother him. It wasn't that he was eager to fight them, but he knew that he could. He wasn't afraid. What _did_ bother him was that his plan included encountering other people.

He never had been very good around people, and the years of isolation and murdering hadn't helped. In his mind, he had a rough idea of how people interacted, but as a teenager he had never been able to get it quite right.

If there was someone else in Silent Hill, and they were being attacked by monsters, he would probably be fine until the monsters were dead. After that, he suspected he would fall apart. Either he would be tongue-tied and embarrass himself, or he would lose track of what he was saying and scare the person.

Even if he did handle himself well, eventually he would have to say something about who he was. What would someone think upon finding out that their newfound protector was trying to make up for having been a serial killer?

He reached the end of Bachman Road and sighed. Just a short turn on Sandford Street, and then he could head down towards the lighthouse. There was no point in turning back now.

xXx

The pier leading to the lighthouse was just as deserted as the other streets he had traveled, so he crossed easily. He paused for a moment, looking up at the lighthouse. White walls stretched high into the sky, up to the tower that should have cast light across Toluca Lake. Then he pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The metal staircase that spiraled up to the very top of the lighthouse was rusting, and he felt a moment of consternation as he put his foot on the first rickety step. With no other plans, however, he put it out of his mind and carefully made his way up.

When he reached the top, he was surprised to see that someone was already there, looking over the edge. It was a young woman, with dark hair that reached her shoulders, held back in one spot by a small hairpin. She was wearing a white turtleneck sweater, with reddish-brown jeans.

She gasped and turned around when she heard his footsteps, and she pulled a knife from her belt. Her dark eyes were wide, with either surprise or fear.

He stopped, taken aback by her reaction.

"I…"

If anything, him speaking only made her grip the knife tighter.

He sighed and wondered how this was going so badly already. Abruptly he imagined what he must look like to her—a strong, young man in the middle of Silent Hill, with his long blonde hair considerably cleaner than it used to be, but still tangled, his green eyes focused on her, and a tree branch in his hand.

He cautiously set the tree branch down at his feet and hoped it would make him appear less threatening. After a moment, he tried his hardest to smile in a normal, gentle way. From the way the woman was still looking at him, he guessed it wasn't working.

He sighed. He hadn't approached anyone in a genuinely friendly manner in… He tried to remember when he had last done such a thing, and failed. He could remember feeling very _calm_ around people, and he supposed that must have shown on his face, but since those memories all seemed to involve blood and death, that wasn't what he was aiming for.

"Who are you?" the woman asked. She gave the knife a bitter smile, and put it away.

"My name is Walter."

"I'm Angela."

She seemed less concerned about his presence on top of the lighthouse now, to his relief; perhaps she just greeted everyone by pointing a knife at them. The thought, while far from reassuring, was plausible.

"Have you been chased by monsters?" he asked, deciding that was a good direction to turn the conversation.

She frowned at him for a moment, before sighing, "All my life."

He wasn't quite sure what she meant by that, so he just stood there, feeling decidedly less pleased with his idea. Perhaps she didn't need any help.

"I haven't seen you before," she said.

"I just got to Silent Hill."

"So you came to the lighthouse?" She turned away from him slightly, although not entirely, and looked out over the pier again. "It's a long way down…"

He opened his mouth and closed it again. What did one say to something like that? "It certainly is," he finally managed.

"I've been here for years," she sighed, taking a few steps towards the staircase. She hesitated. Walter stepped out of her way, and she started to walk down. "I still haven't been able to do it."

_Do what?_ he wondered, as he listened to her footsteps descend to the bottom of the lighthouse.

He thought about the strange expression on her face when she had looked at the knife, as well as her comment about how long a fall from the top of the lighthouse would be. So she had been in the town for years, and she saw only one way out.

He moved closer to the edge, where he could watch her hurrying away from the lighthouse. There had to be another way than the one she was thinking of. He frowned slightly. She was a very frightened person; that much he could tell just from the way she had stood when they spoke. He thought back to that now, how she had held herself away from him even after putting the knife away, the way she had seemed poised to run—or pull out the knife again—if necessary, and her apparent reluctance to walk too close by him, which had caused him to move out of her way.

That sort of ever-present fear was familiar, to be sure. He had seen it in Eileen Galvin, when he had encountered her later in Henry's company. Not that she had been afraid to fight, even as injured as she was, but it was clear in her eyes and movements that every time she saw him, a part of her was reliving his attack.

Walter closed his eyes and tilted his head back. He didn't want to be thinking about that.

_Why did I ever hurt Miss Galvin? She was the only person who was ever kind to me…_

He forced his mind back to the present with difficulty. If he started remembering her injuries, and how he had given them to her, on top of the lighthouse, Angela's idea might start looking too promising.

He had been reminded of Joseph Schreiber, too. Oh, the energetic, inquisitive journalist had been quite different from Angela at the start. By the end, though, the constant torment had broken him down to the point where all he could do was look around to see where the next threat was.

There was one more person, too…

With a start, he realized that the third person he was thinking of was himself. He had think back even further, to the days before the murders, the days before college, all the way back to when he was homeless. They weren't pleasant memories. A few stood out more than others, but there was one constant thought throughout them: _Everyone is going to hurt me._

He reflected on that unhappily as he continued to watch Angela, down in the town below. She had left the pier and was walking east along Sandford Street. He wondered what had happened to her, to make her feel such fear.

To make her talk about suicide as though it were the only choice.

_Well,_ the cold streets below seemed to whisper to him, _you did want someone to save._

He retrieved his tree branch and started to head back down the stairs.

_Yeah, I suppose I did._

xXx

He hoped there wasn't anything inherently wrong with following someone. He had enough experience with following people that it wasn't a particularly daunting task, even with the thick fog that rolled over him. Angela had turned onto Riverside Drive after walking most of the length of the street, and so had he.

He looked from side to side as he walked, noting the diners, homes, and other buildings that he passed. In a lot of ways, it was just like the Silent Hill he remembered, except that it was strangely…peaceful.

Peaceful.

It wasn't a word associated with Silent Hill very often, not this Silent Hill, at least. There were strange things of course, such as the large chasm he'd had to circle around while traveling along Sandford Street, and the occasional gruesome sight, like the fence he'd passed that was drenched with blood and gore. He knew he ought to be more bothered by these things than he was, but if he was honest, he just wasn't. He had seen worse things, he had _caused_ worse things, and although he did feel sorrow, he wasn't shaken up by any of it.

What affected him more strongly was the emptiness, and he didn't consider it to be a necessarily bad thing. He didn't feel alone, but free. He could stretch out his arms in the fog and not bump anyone. There was no one to intrude on him in any way. There was nothing pressing in on his mind beyond a pleasantly benevolent sort of goal. As he walked through the fog-shrouded streets, he could breathe in the air and simply be glad to be alive.

He wasn't sure he had ever felt like this before.

Free of the Order, free of his own darkness—he couldn't help but want to share this new freedom with someone else, and that was part of the protective urge he felt whenever he thought about Angela.

He had walked a while longer, getting slightly lost in his thoughts, when a terrified scream rang out from somewhere ahead of him.

_Angela!_

He ran in the direction of her voice, gripping the branch firmly. He was nearly at the end of the road when he saw her, on her knees with her back against the wall of a diner. She had been cornered by a…_thing._

His sense of calm was gone. It looked like a bloated, decaying figure, hunched over and somehow melded together with a door that its limbs passed through. It let out a grating roar as it reared over Angela.

A similar monster was lying dead in the street, presumably by Angela's hand, but her knife was lying on the ground. When this one had trapped her, she must have lost her nerve and dropped it.

She was still crying out; her screams inexplicably sounded as though they contained the word "daddy," but Walter didn't have time to try to figure that out. He simply ran over to them and smashed the tree branch into the side of the creature, forcing it away from her.

It let out an awful sound and ran towards him. He raised the branch, waiting for it to get close enough. When it reached him, he saw that it had a horrible, gaping mouth, which was dripping putrid liquids and rapidly descending towards him.

He hit it with the branch again, driving it backwards. Before he could move, however, it lunged. Suddenly, he was in darkness, as that mouth closed over his head. He could feel teeth cutting into his face, along with a horrifying suction.

Sheer panic paralyzed him for a moment—and then he forced his limbs to move. He blindly hit the tree branch into its side, hearing a satisfying screech as it loosened its grip slightly. Reminding himself that he had faced far worse things than this, he continued to hit it until it released him.

Walter staggered backwards, wiping his face with his free hand so that he could see. He watched the monster warily. He certainly didn't want that to happen again.

When it came towards him again, he was ready for it, not allowing it that second to catch him after his attack. Wanting very much to put an end to this, he continued to hit it until it finally collapsed on the ground and was still.

He watched it for a moment to make sure it wasn't going to jump up again, and then he turned his attention to Angela. She was still huddled against the wall, crying.

Feeling awkward, he walked over and knelt by her, reaching out cautiously. "Angela…?"

She jerked away from him, retrieving her knife and scrambling to her feet. "Don't touch me!"

He backed up. He felt there ought to be something he could say to make up for however he had frightened her, but it wasn't coming to him.

"So," she said, "I see you couldn't do it, either."

_Do what? Throw myself off the lighthouse?_

"I…I wouldn't kill myself," he answered, catching himself before he could add _again_ to the end of that.

"That's what James said. He took my knife. My other knife."

"James?"

"He was one of the others who came when I did. I left him at the staircase. I don't know if he made it out or not."

"Was James a nice man?" He wondered if this James could have been the one who had left Angela so afraid.

"He claimed to be."

"But he wasn't really?" he pressed.

"I knew why he was being nice to me," she said, her voice cracking slightly as she looked away.

Walter didn't know, but he could tell it was upsetting her. With nothing useful to say, he just stood there, feeling stupid. It didn't sound like the man called James had done anything to her, but she clearly hadn't trusted him. There had to be something he was missing.

"I…I better go," Angela said, starting to back away. "Maybe I can find a way out…or I might finally find my mama, I mean, my mother." Stammering slightly, she added, "Good luck with, um, whatever brought you here," before turning and running away.

He frowned after her, feeling thoroughly confused. She was looking for her mother? In Silent Hill? That could point to a whole host of problems; if anyone knew, he did.

It reminded him, too, of something he had almost forgotten. There was something else odd he had heard her say, when the monster was attacking her.

He looked at the dead creature. While the part above the door had vaguely humanoid aspects to it, he would never mistake it for a person. She couldn't have been referring to it when she screamed "daddy," even if he had heard that correctly.

Could she have?

_She's too far gone. You can't save her. You may as well just leave._

He glared at the corpse of the monster…the Doorman. "So maybe she thinks you're her father. That's nowhere near weird enough to dissuade me."

He checked that his tree branch was still intact and sturdy enough to be a weapon, and then he hurried off in the direction Angela had gone.

xXx

She hadn't gone very far. He had just started down the avenue, expecting another long walk ahead of him, when he saw her standing in a side alley, staring at the butcher shop.

"Angela?" he called, inwardly sighing at the startled way she turned to look at him. He decided to stay where he was; maybe if he kept enough distance between them, she'd realize that he meant her no harm.

"You again?" she asked. "Don't you have something you should be doing?"

He had no idea what he would have to do in Silent Hill, so he didn't say anything.

"I had thought maybe mama would be here," she said, looking back at the shop, "but I know I'm never going to find her. No matter where I go, I always seem to end up at the same place…the only way out…"

He wasn't sure what escape there could be in a butcher shop, until he stepped a little closer to the alley and realized that she wasn't looking at the building itself, but at the cleaver visible from its window.

_Why do we keep getting back to this?_

"No," he said. "It's not the only way out. The roads aren't all blocked. You can just leave the town."

"Just walk out of Silent Hill and never return? With you, I suppose," she added, her expression darkening. "Shouldn't you be worried about yourself?"

"I don't seem to be in very much danger."

"You're here, though. Something called you here, right?"

"No," he admitted. "I…" He faltered. It was going to sound so stupid when he tried to put it into words. Still, this could be the turning point. "I know a little bit about this town… I…I thought there might be someone here in trouble. I mean, I came here to see if there was anyone I could help…"

She stared at him. "You expect me to believe _that_?"

He looked at the ground. Granted, he hadn't thought she would consider him a hero, or anything so ridiculous, but he had hoped her view of him would soften somewhat. Instead, she didn't believe him, and if anything, she seemed even angrier.

"Why would I make up something like that?" he finally asked.

"To get what you want?" she suggested.

What he _wanted_ was to help someone, as he had just explained. Before he could point that out, however, she had hurried past him. He watched her run down the street for a short while, only slowing when it was clear he wasn't following.

Walter rubbed his head. This wasn't working out at all. Even worse, he wasn't sure which of them the problem lay with. It was very easy to think that there was just something wrong with her perception of the world, but then again, maybe it was something he was doing without realizing it.

_Maybe there's just something about me that's as good as putting a sign above my head that says, "I was a serial killer," in flashing, neon letters._

He sat down by the side of the road and thought about that. Maybe he didn't smile enough. No, he had smiled all the time when killing people. Maybe his smile wasn't big enough. No, even he knew that if he ran around grinning, he'd look completely psychotic. Could it be that he was smiling too much? Somehow, scowling didn't sound like a good idea, either. He supposed he could try for that deadpan neutral look Henry Townshend had always worn.

It wasn't all him, though. It couldn't be. He thought back to the similarities he had noticed earlier. The way she reacted did remind him of Eileen Galvin, although the fear wasn't centered in on him, and there was something…different about it, as well.

He rubbed his head. He'd give himself a headache if he kept trying to compare Angela to his victims. He was, at least, fairly sure she hadn't been attacked by an undead murderer. Even in Silent Hill, that couldn't be too common.

_Have you considered the possibility that this is all just a hallucination brought on by your desire to redeem yourself, and that she hates and fears you because that is how you view yourself?_

He thought about that for a while, and then he politely told his mind to stop confusing him. He was getting off track.

_The first thing I need to do is stop talking to myself._

He tried to focus on the puzzle at hand, but stray thoughts kept distracting him. It was becoming very difficult to concentrate on anything for very long. Finally, he realized that the problem was a very simple one—he was tired.

The sun had set, and stars were already faintly visible through the fog above. Sometimes he forgot that he was alive again, and therefore needed to be concerned about things such as sleeping.

He stood up, ignoring his body's protests, and looked around. He had noticed a motel not too far off when he had been following Angela. If he retraced his steps, he could get there quickly, and there was a chance it would be unlocked.

He began walking with that in mind, although he wondered briefly where Angela was, and if she would be all right. She had said she had been in Silent Hill for years, so she had to be able to take care of herself. He remembered the monster looming over her and wondered if that had just been a strange misstep on her part, and that she wouldn't normally have needed help at all. That was the only explanation he could think of for her to have survived against them alone for years, unless the thing wouldn't have killed her…but he didn't see how that made any sense.

Thinking tiredly about the strange situation he had walked into, he finally found himself on the steps of the motel he had seen. To his relief, it was unlocked. He considered seeking out Room 302, but decided that unless he wanted to play mind games with himself, it would be much easier to just choose a closer room.

Unfortunately, as he crossed the lobby, another one of the Doormen jumped out of the shadows at him.

He hoped to simply beat it to death, but this one was quick enough that he only had time for a few strikes with the branch before it dodged his attack and lunged. It knocked him down, but he rolled out of the way before it could get its mouth over his head.

Getting up, he held the branch as though it were a lance—he didn't have a horse, but that certainly would have made things interesting—and ran at the Doorman. Unfortunately, it moved out of the way.

With a slight sigh, he gave up on theatrics and returned to the method of waiting for it to lunge and then hitting it as many times as he could. Finally, it was dead, and he was much more tired than he had been before.

The fight had carried them into one of the corridors, so he went to the door of the nearest room and pushed it open.

That was when he realized that one of two things was going on. Either the town was trying to do something, or his luck was at the very top of the spectrum of weird. Of all the rooms he could have chosen, Angela was already in this one.

She wasn't exactly lying on the bed, but was curled into the fetal position near the pillows. He knew he ought to leave quietly and pretend he hadn't been there, but he found himself frozen in the doorway, watching her. She looked very innocent like that, and not at all like the sort of person who would pull a knife on someone. The only sign of her fear was the way she was curled up, as though trying to protect herself even while asleep. She brought to mind a word he had applied to very few people in his lifetimes—_pure_.

Her eyes snapped open, and he knew it was too late to flee. She had already seen him. Instead, he tried to look neutral and hoped his earlier guesses about smiling were correct.

"What are you doing?" she asked, getting up so quickly it startled him. "How long have you been watching me?"

"No, no, I… I wasn't…" Neutrality failed entirely, as he blushed and stammered worse than he had in years—probably since his disastrous attempt to talk to Cynthia as a teenager. "I th-thought you were asleep!" he finally managed.

"I try not to sleep. If I sleep, he might—" She cut off suddenly, frowning at him and looking as though she were going to be ill.

_He? But we're the only ones in the town…_

"Please…don't…" Her eyes were becoming wider as her whimpers became more incomprehensible.

He wanted to ask her what she had meant, but the distress his presence was causing her was too troubling. If he ignored it now, he knew it would start becoming easier and easier to hurt people.

And besides that, he really didn't want to cause her _any_ suffering.

"I'm going," he said, backing out into the corridor and hoping there wasn't a monster waiting to jump on him. "I'll, um, leave the building."

He would have rather faced ten Doormen at once than the fear in her eyes. He fled, and didn't stop running until he was well outside of the motel.

The fog seemed a welcome sanctuary. He slumped and gripped his hair. It just wasn't fair! He was trying so hard to be a good person—a _nice_ person, even! He would have expected this sort of reaction from someone like Henry, or Eileen, who knew who he had been, but Angela didn't know any of that. Why did she have to look at him like he was some sort of…monster?

Unhappy and tired, he sat down underneath a nearby tree and pulled his coat more tightly around him. He hadn't particularly wanted to sleep outside, in a town full of monsters, but after spending years sleeping in a subway station, he supposed he could fall asleep just about anywhere.

His last waking thought was that as long as Angela remained inside, the Doormen probably would leave him alone. After all, this wasn't his nightmare.

xXx

That night, he dreamed about the Water Prison.

Rising high above the lake, most people saw it only as an old water treatment plant, now abandoned. To the orphans of the Wish House, however, it was a place of fear and pain. A place of punishment.

He was a child again, being walked through the prison to his cell. He would have to spend the night there, if not longer.

Tears blinded him as he twisted his head up to see the guard. He hadn't done anything wrong; why were they making him come here again? He knew he had read well, and he had tried his hardest to follow all of the rules, ever since his last enforced stay in the cell.

The guard smiled coldly. It was Andrew DeSalvo, the man he hated and feared more than anyone. Even the priests at the orphanage weren't as terrible as him. Andrew was cruel, regarding his job as something to be enjoyed. Breaking a rule even by a fraction when Andrew was around was a surefire way to be slapped. Beatings were common when he was on duty, and always worse than when it was someone else. Andrew was overweight, but he didn't need to be fit when his victims were children.

Whenever a frightening rumor got started among the orphans, especially about suspected new punishments, Andrew was always one to help it along. It didn't matter to him if he was lying. He liked seeing the fear in their faces.

Sometimes, orphans disappeared entirely, and more often than not, he was involved. Walter knew Andrew had killed his friend Bob.

The memory of his vanished friend, along with the fear rising up in him, caused him to lose his sense of reason momentarily.

"I hate you!" he shouted up at the guard, not caring that he would be punished for it. "I _hate_ you!"

Andrew's hand connected with his face, and he fell backwards. His cheek stung, but he jumped to his feet and ran in the direction they had come. Maybe he could get to the door, and somehow escape.

But the guard was right behind him, and he didn't know how to open the door.

"Get back here, you little creep!"

Walter turned around, holding his hands protectively in front of his face. He was entirely in the guard's shadow. The man was so big and dangerous, towering over him with an ugly look on his face.

He shrunk back against the wall, hoping that if he made himself seem smaller, it would somehow lessen his punishment.

"Run away like that again, and I'll break your neck!" Andrew snarled.

He wished he was big enough to stand up for himself, but all he could do was huddle against the wall and cry out as the guard's punches rained down on him. Someday, Andrew would know what it was like. That was the thought he clung to for comfort through the haze of pain, that one day, someone would hurt Andrew like he hurt others, and make him feel so afraid and helpless.

Suddenly, Walter's viewpoint changed, and he was watching his child self be beaten. He could still feel the injuries, and he stepped forward, planning to do something to make it stop, but then the dream changed again.

Now it was Angela being beaten, and Andrew had faded into an unidentifiable figure. As he attacked her, the woman threw up her hands and cried out, "Daddy, please don't!"

He saw her as a child, just as he had been previously, looking up with a bruised face and still crying out for mercy as the unknown figure—which now looked like a decaying monster, resembling the Doorman to some degree—kept up his relentless attack.

Walter moved forward as he had before, knocking him away from her. As he turned to look at her, however, the world spun and shifted. The body lay bloodied and lifeless, but it no longer was Angela's. The corpse belonged to Jimmy Stone, priest of the Valtiel sect, the first person Walter had ever killed.

He took a step back, and the body was the asphyxiated corpse of Bobby Randolph. Another step, and it was Sein Martin.

He froze, paralyzed with horror, but the body changed anyway. Steve Garland's bullet-riddled corpse lay before him. Before he could recover from that shock, it changed yet again.

He lasted until Cynthia Velasquez, not quite dead yet, lifted her head and tried to plead with him. Unable to face that, he turned and ran.

They weren't in the Water Prison anymore. He didn't know where they were. White, labyrinthine corridors, separated by strange channels of water; none of it was any place he had ever seen before. He chose doors at random, knowing he had to find the way outside.

Despite not having seen anyone else alive, he had the distinct feeling of being chased. He jumped across one of the channels and rammed his way through another door, feeling panicked. His hands were sweating, and he absently wiped them on his coat. He couldn't let himself be caught.

_What am I running from? Myself?_

It was then that he realized that it was not sweat his hands were covered with, but blood. Crying out in alarmed surprise, he hurried to the end of one of the streams, where water was mysteriously pouring down from a pipe in the ceiling.

He reached out his hands, but the water slowed to a trickle. He looked up at the original source of the water in frustration, frowning up at the opening and wondering why it was stopping. Upset and desperately wanted his hands to be cleansed of the blood, he tried to catch what little water there was. Not even the slightest drop touched him, and then the whole room shook.

The pipe exploded in a gush of blood, raining down on him.

xXx

He yelled and jerked awake, momentarily disoriented by his surroundings. He remembered where he was, and then, his heart still pounding, he got up and hurried towards the river. It wasn't far away, fortunately.

He shoved his hands in the cold water and tried to erase the memory of blood running over them. Even though he knew that, logically, blood from a dream couldn't get him dirty, he wasn't content until he had washed his hands, and his face, too. It at least got rid of the remaining grime from his fights with the Doormen.

Finally, he sat up and took a deep breath, feeling a little better. That dream had gotten out of hand. He shuddered at the memory. It was still too vivid. At least he was here, alone. It had only been a nightmare.

_Some parts were true, though. And…she really _was_ abused, wasn't she?_

He turned his head so he could look unhappily at the motel. Somewhere in there was Angela—hunted through the hall by her demons, or perhaps caught in restless nightmares of her own.

It had only been a nightmare…but now there was no doubt in his mind that she had been hurt, probably repeatedly, and possibly when she was a child. As for who had done it, all he had to go by was her previously inexplicable addressing of the monster as though it were her father.

He didn't want to think about that.

It was still late at night, and he could feel sleep trying to claim him again. He lay back on the ground where he was, thinking. No one had ever protected him. No one had ever even tried. No one cared.

No one cared.

_I care_, he thought fuzzily, no longer thinking about himself.

He had a vague thought about how nice it would be to hold that poor young woman protectively in his arms, and then he had fallen into undisturbed sleep.

xXx

When he woke up, he knew that he had to do more than simply protect Angela. He wanted to know all about her. What had been her goals, her dreams, before ending up in Silent Hill? What sorts of things did she like? What would make her happy?

Walter smiled up at the sky and wondered whether they had anything in common. He certainly hoped so, but he didn't know how to find out. His attempts at talking to her had gone rather regrettably badly so far.

_What is happening to me?_

The part of his mind that had a sudden need to know Angela's favorite color pushed his worries aside. Whatever was happening, it felt like a good thing.

"You certainly show up in the oddest of places."

Despite his inexplicable nervousness upon hearing her voice from somewhere behind him, Walter managed to get up without falling into the river. Angela was standing just a few feet away, with an unreadable expression on her face.

_Don't mess it up this time. Come on, now, say the right thing._

"Um." He gave up entirely on deadpan neutral and tried a tentative smile while he thought of what someone was supposed to say in this situation—not that he was entirely sure what the situation _was_, which complicated matters.

She wasn't running away or waving the knife around, so that had to be an improvement.

"You…look very lovely today," he finally said, hoping it was the right thing.

Her expression darkened.

_No, that definitely wasn't it._

Before he could say anything else, he heard something that sounded unfortunately like a Doorman approaching.

He turned to see, and there, coming from the shadowed walls of the motel, were two of the monsters. A chill swept through him. Seeing it now, he could tell that the Doorman was made up of two figures, not one. They were trapped together, a larger figure looming over a smaller one, much as he had seen the monster itself threatening Angela. The smaller figure fused into the creature seemed to be in pain; the screams from his nightmare rose to the forefront of his mind.

As horrifying as that new view of the monster was, a worse realization was that he no longer had his branch. He had left it in his mad dash to the river. It wasn't far, but the Doormen were closer. If he ran for his weapon, they would be able to attack Angela. He knew she was their first choice of prey.

"Run," he advised her, stepping in front of her so that he'd be in their path.

She looked at him as though he were crazy. "What are you going to do?"

He wasn't entirely sure himself. He turned to face the approaching Doormen, prepared to…fight them hand-to-hand, if that was what it took.

_Isn't this a bit much to balance out the scale?_

_ It doesn't even come close,_ he reminded himself, _and anyways, it's not just about that anymore._

Something cold was pressed into his hand. Looking down, he saw that Angela had given him her knife, before running.

He smiled. That would make the fight easier.

The first monster charged him, and he slashed out at it with the dagger. It faltered for a second, and he took the opportunity to strike at the other one as well.

_Me. I'm your target._

It lunged, trying to trap his head in its mouth. He dropped to the ground to evade it. Its momentum carried it over him, and he thrust the knife up into its underside and twisted it. Blood dripped onto him and the creature screeched, but it countered by stomping on his other arm.

He grunted with pain and scrambled to get clear of the Doorman. Standing, he lashed out at it charged him again, slashing it twice on what could arguably be considered its head.

It fell back, and he jumped on it with the intent to finish it. As he did so, however, he saw that the other one had resumed its chase of Angela. For an instant, he had the image in his mind of it catching her—the Doorman towering over the woman, making her scream in fear and torment, just as the smaller figure that made up the monster did. It felt as though fire swept through his veins.

"Guess again!" he shouted, pushing off of the monster he had been fighting and running to catch the first.

The monster was hideous, but it was also slow. He caught it easily as its trundling steps took it along the grass by the river.

Leaping on top of it, he drove the blade into the one strange, twitching head. It reared up and tried to throw him off, but he dug the knife in doggedly, yanking it backwards through the monster's flesh. Putrid skin and blood flew everywhere, but he didn't care that it hit him. If this _thing_ thought it was going to hurt her…

He pulled the knife free and began to hack at the pieces of twisted membrane and flesh that fused the two figures together.

Sudden pain lanced through his leg, and he twisted around to see what was happening. The other Doorman had caught up at last, and with his head out of its range, it had deigned to eat—or whatever in the world that sickening attack of its was supposed to do—his foot.

The distraction was enough for the wounded Doorman to throw him to the ground. He hit heavily, wincing as he landed on his already-injured arm.

The one gripping his leg began to shuffle backwards, and he realized with a spike of alarm that it was going to try to throw him in the river. The bank was much higher here, and falling in would be quite dangerous.

Ignoring the stabs of pain that were running through his body from several places now, he kicked at the monster with his free leg. When the other one dove at him from above and trapped his head, he felt like screaming for more than one reason.

_Do these things ever quit?_

Wishing Doormen were made with a more familiar anatomy, he blindly cut at the thing attacking him. He'd eventually hit it somewhere painful. At the same time, he continued to kick at the other one, until at last, his leg was free.

The air that washed over his leg was mercifully cool, but he had other problems to worry about. The mouth over his head, he realized, was not trying to necessarily eat him, but he could feel his air supply diminishing.

Staving off panic, he continued to strike at it with the knife, while reaching up with his other hand to tear it off of him. With an effort, he got it to release him, and he staggered backwards into what he desperately hoped was a clear area, before the other one could attack.

Luck paid off; the other Doorman lunged at the space he had just been in.

He took a moment to glance over them in the direction Angela had been running. She was nowhere in sight.

A burst of satisfaction filled him, and he smiled coldly at the two monsters.

"I've won," he said calmly. "You just haven't realized it yet."

The one he had previously savaged was bleeding heavily and nearly falling apart. It tried to attack again nevertheless, and a solid strike with the knife finished it. As it fell to the ground, he turned his attention to the remaining Doorman.

It ran at him in its familiar style, and he jumped backwards. His foot slipped slightly, and he realized that they had reached the bank of the river.

_Oh, so that's its plan_, he realized, as it prepared to lunge at him again. This time, jumping backwards would land him in the river.

He smiled at it again, thinking about the awful thing it represented, and how much he wished it could comprehend his smile and know that its vile little life was going to end.

He held his ground as it flew towards him, keeping his eyes on that horrible mouth. When it was within his reach, he stepped forward, driving the knife upwards into the orifice. It roared and tried to use its bulk against him, crushing him down towards the ground. He kicked his legs out from under him, because even landing on the ground as heavily as he did was preferable to having one's legs bent in the wrong direction. His feet were well over the river, now, and he grabbed desperately at the ground with his free hand.

The pain he was in was terrible, and he was rapidly sliding down the bank—but the monster's own weight was helping his effort with the knife. At last, the weapon's tip broke up into the upper part, above the door structure. Slashing down viciously, he ripped the Doorman into two separate pieces.

Its dying cry brought a sigh of relief to him; he now was able to let go of the knife and hang onto the riverbank with both hands. The monster's body tumbled past him and fell into the river.

He hung there, exhausted, in pain, and wondering if it would be such a bad thing to just let go.

_Look at you,_ part of his thoughts sneered. _Look at how you fought those things. You wanted to be more brutal even than that. You _enjoyed_ their pain._

_ They were monsters,_ he responded. _They were going to hurt Angela._

_But you've felt like that before. You know you have. The tearing of flesh, the spraying of blood…it didn't bother you at all. You were yourself again. Admit it. That's who you are, and you are a fool to think you can escape your past._

He groaned, unable to deny how irresistible the prospect of letting go seemed. It would be so easy. Perhaps Angela was right, and that was the only way to get out…the only way to escape.

_Angela… No, I have to save her._

_ Save her? You can't even save yourself._

Why did he have to save her, again? His head was pounding, and he was having trouble getting through to his murky thoughts. What had he been thinking, when he came to Silent Hill? He had been so convinced that someone would need his help.

Because he had needed help, previously.

The thought shot into his mind like a lightning bolt, driving away the darker thoughts.

He had been unable to face the darkness inside of himself, unable to accept the guilt for what he had done.

_Can I, now?_

Walter dragged himself up onto solid ground and shuddered, drawing deep, ragged breaths. Death wasn't the answer. He wasn't giving up on himself—or Angela—that easily.

xXx

As much as he wanted to walk right past it, Walter stopped at the entrance to Alchemilla Hospital. He was injured and in pain, and he also thought he might be able to find a weapon to replace the lost knife.

_I could just go back and get the tree branch,_ he considered, pausing with his hand on the door. _I can handle pain._

However, purposely walking around in a weakened state was a stupid idea to begin with, and doing it just because he hated hospitals felt downright idiotic.

He opened the door cautiously and stepped in. It appeared completely abandoned, as he had expected. Unless Angela had chosen the hospital as her place to hide, there shouldn't be any monsters here.

Not that that meant he had to linger. Sprinting from room to room seemed like a good plan, albeit one that his injuries made impossible. Still, he took a quick look at the map posted on the wall and then limped as quickly as he could to find what he needed.

A scalpel was first; he dug one out of the storage room just in case he was mistaken about the lack of monsters. He then grabbed a roll of bandages, a bottle of disinfectant, and everything else that he thought he might need.

He found an unlocked examination room with some difficulty and then sat down, piling the items he had gathered beside him. He was mainly just bruised, but he also had numerous cuts, and the condition of his left arm after being stepped on by the Doorman was worrying. Still, he'd faced far worse.

He patched himself up to the best of his ability—he did have some medical experience, he reasoned, even if it was generally in reverse—and pocketed the scalpel. If he was going to be fighting Doormen, and protecting Angela was going to involve a lot of that, he wanted a weapon that would be a bit more effective than what he had tried so far. The scalpel looked like it would only make the fights longer and more annoying.

One trip to the upper floors later, and he was on his way out of the hospital with a surgical saw, feeling much more confident about his ability to fight.

What he was feeling _less_ confident about, were his chances of getting Angela to trust him. The battle with the Doormen had given his coat an aggravatingly familiar bloodstained look, and now he was walking around with a saw.

He headed east along Koontz Street, because that was the direction he had last seen her running in. To his surprise, he saw her at the end of it, standing in front of an apartment building. She was staring at it with an unhappy, frightened look on her face, but she looked over as he approached.

"I'm going to need that knife back."

"Oh." He stopped. "I… I lost it."

She nodded, the corner of her mouth twisting slightly. "It figures." She opened the door and walked inside.

"Wait!" He walked in after her and immediately froze.

The place he had just entered could not possibly have been what the apartment building really looked like. He was standing in a long hallway, lit by an eerie red light. The walls were the color of skin, and he expected that if he touched one, it would feel the same way. Up near the ceiling, holes lined the walls, and fleshy pistons thrust steadily in and out of them. Watching them gave him a creepy feeling, and he quickly looked away. Angela was still, staring down the hall.

"Angela?"

She turned around, looking shocked and more than a little afraid. "You followed me?"

"It sounded like you thought you were going to be in danger."

She smiled bitterly. "This is different. I can't run away while you face it for me."

"Then…" As much as he disliked surrendering his better weapon, he held out the saw, wanting to help her. "I lost your knife, but you can take this." He remembered her aversion to coming near him, and set it down on the floor between them. "As long as you don't use it on yourself, that is." He knew she might consider it, and the thought put a lump in his throat. "Don't kill yourself. Please."

_I'm starting to like her, aren't I?_

The thought was pointless, because he had known it for a while, but putting it into words even to himself made him feel embarrassed.

Angela picked up the saw and frowned at him. "Thank you…but why do you keep saving me?"

"I want to help you."

"Please, just leave me alone."

"Leave you alone? But…"

She looked away, and he saw tears glimmering in her eyes as she cried, "I don't need to be in your debt!"

"Debt?" he repeated, thoroughly confused. He took half a step towards her, holding out his hand. "I…"

"No, stay away from me!" she shouted, backing away. She looked around, and the panic in her face grew. "You… You're all the same!"

"I wasn't going to hurt you!" he protested in dismay, holding up his hands.

"You don't have to pretend to be nice to me."

He took a deep breath. This was getting completely out of hand. "Look," he said, trying to speak as gently as he could and hoping that his guess was correct, "I know that your father—"

"Oh, you even know _that_! That must make it even easier for you. Why pretend? Why go through all this effort? I've seen you fight!"

For a moment, he had been hopelessly lost, but now he thought he could see where this was going, again. Maybe too much of his past really did shine through when he fought the monsters. However, his intended explanation shattered as she continued shouting.

"I know you're stronger than me! Strong enough to force—" The rest of her sentence was lost in a choked sob, as she turned away from him and fled.

Walter watched her run, stunned and bewildered by what had just happened. She obviously thought he was playing some sort of cruel game, but…what exactly did she think he was going to do?

_I should be smart enough to figure this out,_ he reasoned, as he slowly began to walk down the hallway. He was sure he was missing something simple, or just not putting all of the pieces together.

At the end of the hall, he looked in the direction Angela had gone and hesitated. The way she had looked at him made him feel uncomfortable, and reluctant to continue following her. He glanced down at his feet. He wanted to help, but she clearly didn't see it that way.

_Because we're "all the same." What does that mean?_

The growl of a Doorman distracted him, and he looked up. It was shuffling around the corner towards him. He reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out the scalpel, taking the protective cap off of the blade.

The monster was now close enough that he could once again see every horrible detail—and a cold chill swept through him. He was dimly aware of raising the scalpel as the Doorman leaped, but the fight was a blur.

The next thing he was aware of was standing over the monster's body, staring down at it. He had gotten blood everywhere, but he didn't care. He was staring at the door.

The door—the strangest thing about the monsters, the peculiar feature that had caused him to think of them as the Doormen—was not a door at all. It was a _bed._

Walter looked up at the walls, with their flesh-like appearance. He looked at the unsettling pistons, with their unceasing motion.

He looked again at the two figures that made up the monster. The big one, towering over the smaller one. The smaller one, screaming in torment. They represented, as he had previously realized, the father and the daughter. And they were locked in their hideously abusive embrace on a bed.

That meant that Angela's father had…

Walter stumbled over to the corner and threw up.

_I have memories in which I'm up to my elbows in blood, and _this_ makes me sick?_

He shuddered. Yes, it did. Now he understood why she was afraid to be touched, and why she seemed to see ulterior motives in everything he did. Trapped in Silent Hill for years with those monsters haunting her every move—he was amazed that she was as sane as she was.

He finally began walking down the hall again, at a much slower pace, lost in his thoughts. He wasn't quite sure how to handle this situation. Murder, he understood. Physical abuse, he understood. He'd even make a claim to understanding emotional abuse. When it came to sexual abuse and rape, however, he was at a loss. He could barely begin to understand what she had gone through.

His old teachers would have had a lot to say on the matter. The thought made him clench his fists. They would have condemned the crime, surely, but he knew they would condemn Angela right along with it.

_But I've long since abandoned the Order. Anyone saying anything against her will have to get through me, first._

That was easier said than done, especially since she didn't trust him. He sighed and continued working on what to say when he next saw her.

xXx

Walter was on an upper floor, having had wandered through most of the building. He was beginning to think he wasn't going to find her again, when a door opened and she stepped out. Angela's appearance was alarming. Her eyes were wild, her face was stained with tears, and the saw, which she raised when she noticed him, was covered in blood.

He glanced at the room she had come from. What had happened in there? Some kind of test from the town, he assumed, but had she passed or failed?

More importantly, though, how sane was she, and was she going to attack him?

"Angela?" he asked, holding up his hands in an expression of goodwill. "I know what you think, but I swear to you, I only want to help you."

"What do you mean by 'help'?" she demanded. "After all, what if I…" Her voice faltered, as she finished, "deserved what happened?"

"That's nonsense!" he cried, shocked.

She fixed him with a sharp look. "You really want to help me?"

"Yes!"

"Then leave me alone!"

"But, Angela—"

"Stop _following _me! Leave me alone with my guilt!"

He hung his head. "I'll leave, if that's what you want. But in one thing, you're wrong—you should have no guilt."

He turned slowly and began to leave. This was terrible; it wasn't at all what he had hoped would happen. He couldn't protect her if he left her alone, but he didn't see how he could ignore her request.

"I killed him."

Her sudden statement caused him to turn around in surprise.

Angela stared at him, with a mix of defiance and self-hate visible in her face. "You think I'm not guilty of anything. But when my father caught me that last time, I killed him."

It took him by surprise, but he nodded calmly. "I understand."

"Understand?" She dropped the saw and took several furious steps towards him. "You can't possibly understand! Do you know what it's like to kill someone—to stick a knife in him and be _happy_ to see his blood, to hear his screams, because finally he's feeling some of the pain he put you through? To know that you've _murdered_ someone? Do you have any idea what that's like?"

"Yes."

She was visibly taken aback by his response. "What?"

"I killed nineteen people. No, eighteen," he corrected. "The eleventh was myself."

Her eyes widened, and she took a step back.

Walter flinched at her reaction, and then he turned and left.

xXx

He only made it as far as the stairs before he knew he had to sit down and compose himself. He ignored the sense of déjà vu, because he didn't think he could handle thinking about Eileen Galvin now.

_I've really made a wreck of everything._

He put his head in his hands. He wasn't sure how he felt about Angela. He didn't think he loved her—he hadn't known her long enough for that—but he couldn't deny that there was something there, as though he could have come to love her in time. He had hoped that he would have the time to find out.

It was a foolish hope, perhaps. He gripped his hair tightly, angry with himself. It had been a very stupid hope, a dream of a life that someone else could have, but not him. He had hoped to alleviate her fears of him, and instead, he had admitted to being a serial killer.

"Former," he mumbled into his hands. "_Former_ serial killer."

He didn't want her to view him that way.

His eyes stung, and even though he felt even more pathetic for crying over this, he made no attempt to stop the tears. It had been such a small, simple hope. Was it so much to ask, that someone would love him?

"Walter?"

He turned his head at the sound of Angela's voice. She was standing above him on the stairs, looking at him.

"What did you mean…the eleventh was yourself?"

He might have smiled, if it hadn't hurt so much. Of course, that part would have sounded insane to her. "It was a rite called the Holy Assumption," he sighed. He began to explain it, and before he knew what he was doing, he was going back to the beginning.

From the Wish House, the visit from the priestess called Dahlia, and Room 302, to the ten hearts killing spree, his ritualistic suicide, and the rest of his attempts to complete the 21 Sacraments, he told her everything. He looked away from her when he began to talk about the murders, staring at his hands instead. There were a couple of times when he was tempted to gloss over what he had done, or justify himself, but he forced himself to tell it as it had happened. If she thought he was a monster…well, there was nothing he could do about that now.

"But Henry Townshend stopped me, finally killing me," he finished at last.

"You seem alive to me," Angela commented. She had come to sit beside him on the step as he spoke.

"I…guess I've been given another chance. It wasn't my doing. I didn't expect to come back."

She was silent for a long time. He looked over at her. She was sitting with her knees folded up under her chin, and her arms wrapped around her legs. Finally, she said, "You know, with the way you reacted to me wanting to kill myself, I didn't think you understood. But you must. You're just like me."

"No. Don't compare yourself to me," he said softly, looking away again. "You killed out of self-defense."

"I…I know. But I didn't feel like it was a duty I had to perform, or some necessary thing that had to be done. When I killed him, I…I enjoyed it," she whispered.

He stared down at his hands, glad he didn't have to meet her gaze when he forced out the words he hated. "So did I."

They sat in silence for a while. The darkness of the past suddenly seemed like an insurmountable obstacle.

_Don't abandon me_, Walter wanted to plead. _I don't want to be all alone again._

Strangely, she wasn't making a move to leave, even though he would have expected any sensible person to be running away as fast as they could. Maybe she had lost too much hope to keep running. Maybe sitting beside him was similar to standing at the top of a lighthouse, ready to jump. Either thought was depressing.

She wasn't even that close to him, but he could sense her presence almost painfully. Her proximity was a dangerous thing, awakening feelings he hadn't thought he still possessed, and adding layers to the protectiveness he already felt. A part of him wanted to put his arm around her, but he knew that would be among the worst things he could do. He sighed. In that moment, he wished he could be someone else, anyone else, but himself.

"How do you do it?" Angela asked suddenly, breaking the silence.

He looked over at her nervously. "What?"

"You haven't killed yourself. I'd say you're afraid, but you've faced death too many times for me to believe that. Are you clinging to some dream of redemption? How do you keep believing?"

He thought back to his feelings when he was hanging over the river, searching for the words to explain. "There were times in the past when I could have turned back. Lonely as I would have been, I could have forged some sort of existence for myself that didn't involve killing any more people. But to do that, I would have had to admit that I was wrong, and that the things I had done were…evil. So I ignored the truth, so that I wouldn't have to face the guilt. Well, now I know the truth." He laughed bitterly. "I have so much guilt on my shoulders it's a wonder I can walk. Killing myself would just be a different way of running from it. I have to believe I can overcome my past. If I can't believe that…I can't believe anything."

She was quiet for a while, and he hoped she was thinking about what he said. Finally, she said, "Did you say the way out of town is unblocked?"

He looked over quickly. "It was when I came, at least."

Angela stood up. "Well, it can't hurt to take a look. Will you show me?"

"Yes, of course," he said, getting to his feet and starting down the stairs.

She followed him, and when they left the apartment building, she looked around. "The fires have stopped."

"What?" he asked, confused.

She shook her head. "Oh, nothing. Let's go find the road. What do you plan to do, anyway, once you leave Silent Hill?"

He hadn't really planned very far ahead, but he was relieved to have something normal to talk about, as they walked through the empty, curiously monster-free streets.

xXx

It was a long walk to Bachman Road, and Walter found himself talking more than he could ever remember talking to anyone before. It wasn't as hard as he had feared; once he got going, he stopped worrying as much about saying the wrong thing, and his audience was patient enough to listen through his occasional non sequiturs and tangents.

Angela spoke too, after a while. It turned out that she did have a few happy memories to relate, after all. Telling them brightened her mood, and he was pleased to see a lighter side of her.

Once they reached the road, it was another long walk to the north. When they finally arrived, he was relieved to see that there were no chasms or obstructions blocking their way. At the same time, however, he felt a twinge of disappointment. He hadn't wanted the walk to ever end.

"Walter?"

He looked over. Angela was watching him, her dark eyes filled with an emotion he had felt himself. It was the barest glimmerings of hope, from someone who hardly dared to hope.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

She slipped her hand into his, and he felt his eyes widen with surprise. He looked down at their hands and then back up at her. A new and unfamiliar feeling was filling him now—the curious feeling of being trusted. All at once, he felt sure that his dreams were not so hopeless after all, and that redemption _was_ possible, even for him.

This feeling, then, and everything it brought with it, was surely something to protect, just as she was someone to protect.

Walter squeezed her hand gently, and then they began walking together, leaving the fog-shrouded streets of Silent Hill behind.


End file.
